Essay
Essay Unit 22 - Market Research learning aim A Graded
- Module
- Unit 22 - Market Research
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
examine the types of market research used in business
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Learning Aim, AIn this report, I will examine the types of market research used in business.
What is Market Research?
Market research is the action of gathering data on customer wants and needs. The purpose of market
research is to collect information that might help a business to be successful when understanding
customer’s behaviour. From this, they can determine buying trends and utilise those trends to their
advantage, as it involves collecting data about the market they operate in, or what customers want. There
are 4 types of market research: Primary, Secondary, Qualitative and Quantitative research.
Primary research involves gathering information yourself (or hire someone to do for you). For example,
Interviews, Surveys, Questionnaires, Focus groups and more. An advantage of primary research is that the
information gathered is relevant and solely exclusive for that business as they conducted the research by
themselves. However, a disadvantage will be how extremely time consuming and expensive it will be to
conduct, as the business will need to pay employees extra as they are doing something that may not be in
their job description.
Secondary research involves using already existing data. For example, internet, books, news article,
government and nongovernment agencies and more. Because the information is already available and can
be accessed to anyone, it makes it easier for the business to use, which will make the time gathering the
secondary information less time consuming and expensive compared to primary. However, not all
secondary data resources offer the latest reports and statistics as some of them are outdated, which will
make them useless for the business to use.
Quantitative research involves gathering and analysing numerical data. For example, experiment, survey,
(systematic) observation, secondary research and more. An advantage of this is that it allows you to reach
a higher sample size as it involves numbers. When you have the ability to study a larger sample size for
any hypothesis, which will make it is easier to reach an accurate generalized conclusion. However, the time
require to collect all the data, and set up a research model to analyse it can be extremely long and difficult
as it can sometimes involves using complex programming which is often hard to learn. Quantitative
research has to be checked numerous of times as one mis-figure can render the whole data inaccurate.
Qualitative research involves collecting information based on opinions. For example, questionnaires,
interviews and observations. An advantage of this it that it provides more information that is useful for
practical application, as it encourages the collector to understand why people make the choices, they do
each day. From this, it can enable the collector to sell their products or services to that specific customer
more successfully as they can relate that item to the consumer everyday life based on the information
gathered. Additionally, this process can be less time consuming than other research methods as it uses a
smaller sample size. On the other hand, this research method is made for a niche market instead of a mass
market as it does not offer statistical representation to cover a large sample size.
, Greggs was founded by John Gregg at Newcastle in 1939, Gregg’s works in the food sector selling a
variety of pastries like sausage rolls and chicken bakes to donuts. Greggs currently operate nationally with
over 1,950 stores in the UK conducting as a PLC company, however they have plans to expand in the
future as they have 2 stores currently operating in Belgium, which is a reference point of the company's
expansion campaign into mainland Europe. Greggs market objectives: is to have great tasting freshly
prepared food, to have the best customer experience in their market, to have a competitive supply chain,
and to have first class support teams that can be extremely reliable.
Primary Market research method 1 used by Gregg’s:
The first primary research method that Gregg’s uses is surveys. Surveys is the process of gathering
information from a sample of people. Greggs uses surveys to collect the feedback from customers, as they
would rate their personal experience of when they were purchasing foods or drinks from the business. For
example, rating the quality of the sausage rolls or the vegan sausage rolls and customer service from a
scale of 1 to 10. A benefit of surveys for Greggs is that it provides them with feedback as the consumer
would discuss their personal experience at the store. From this, the company can improve or adjust their
processes based on the opinions of the customers. Due to Greggs showing the public that they value their
consumers as they are implementing new changes to enhance their customer service based on the
thoughts of the customers, they could potentially boost their reputation and market power which would
attract more customers to purchase from their business. As a result, increasing their overall profit gain.
Conducting surveys also links to their goal of having good customer service as they are investing into
customers ideas on how to improve the business activities. However, a disadvantage of surveys is that
customers may provide dishonest answers or won’t bothered to answer the questions properly, as some
respondents will choose answers before reading the questions. Which can be problematic for Greggs, as
they wouldn’t know what sector of their business to improve as they could be getting misleading or false
responses back from the surveys. Due to the survey responses being unbiased data collected from
customers, this can help guide Greggs in making business decisions as the surveys would be efficiently
collecting honest feedback, opinions and responses from consumers, which can be used to improve
different sectors of the business, or their goods or services. For example, Gregg’s upgrading their bakeries
or switching suppliers, as the quality of the food produced may not be meeting customer standers.
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